


Festival of Lights Out

by Kryptaria



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Blizzards & Snowstorms, First Meetings, Fluff, Hanukkah, Jewish Character, M/M, Other, Snowed In, WIP, ownvoices
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-05 21:58:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16819258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptaria/pseuds/Kryptaria
Summary: Every year, Christmas seems to come earlier, with no consideration for other holidays. Even 1 December, the first night of Chanukkah this year, isn't safe from a light display that can probably be seen from outer space -- at least until the power goes out, cancelling Morgana's going-away party before it could really get started.Faced with a freezing night alone in the dark, Arthur does the only thing he can think of: he follows the light.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 12/2/18: Yes, I'm posting a WIP. But tonight is the first night of Chanukkah (unlike the fic, which is Dec 1), and I really wanted it posted for the holiday. I'd intended to finish it first, but then we got @xenawarriorzoi (follow her adventures on Twitter and Tumblr), and my life turned upside-down. Oops!
> 
> Betaed by h_d and Zephyrfox, not Brit-picked.
> 
> Happy holiday-or-season-of-your-choice!

“ _Baruch atah A—_ For fuck’s — _shit!_ ” Gwaine snapped from the kitchen, followed by a sharp _bang_ , absurdly putting Merlin in mind of the last time Gwaine had tried to make homemade bread, an experiment that had started with Paul Hollywood’s slap-the-dough-on-the-counter method and ended disastrously, to no one’s surprise.

Torn between pleasure at the distraction and wariness at what Gwaine was getting up to now, Merlin looked up from the photograph he was studying. His eyes ached from the strain of trying to figure out what was an intentionally chiselled line and what was a crack. He put down his tablet and began the process of extracting himself from the lumpy third-hand couch, saying, “I haven’t formally studied Hebrew, but I think you got the wording wrong.”

“That fucking _wanker!_ ” Gwaine answered unhelpfully. “We need kitchen curtains.”

“Are those two sentences —” Merlin rounded the corner and cut off what he now realized was a ridiculous question, because yes, they _were_ related.

The light filling the kitchen would have been perfectly normal if not for a few things. One, the overhead fixture was off. Two, it was a quarter to six on the first of December in northern England, so the sun had long since vanished below the horizon. Three, the single candle in the menorah on the windowsill over the sink was unlit.

At least, Merlin thought it was. He couldn’t see the menorah at all, except in silhouette, because of the sun-bright glare streaming through the window across the little yard that allowed their landlord to charge an extra hundred quid a month for “semi-private outdoor recreational space.”

“Christmas lights?” Merlin guessed, because the blizzard meant not even the hardiest of locals would be enjoying a romantic evening picnic.

“ _Fucking_ Christmas lights,” Gwaine corrected, prying at something on the counter before he gave it up as a bad job. He went to the sink and yanked the faucet handle hard enough to rattle the whole fixture, then stuck his hand under the running water with an exasperated huff.

First aid for a burn? Squinting against the lights, Merlin joined Gwaine at the sink, trying to peer into the shadows to see. “What happened?”

“I dropped the” — Gwaine waved his free hand at the counter — “already-lit whatsis. I had to put it out before the counter caught fire.”

“It’s a _chamash,_ ” Merlin said, taking a guess at the pronunciation, more concerned with the injury than linguistics. He took hold of Gwaine’s wrist and focussed what little healing magic he had on soothing the pain and cooling the burn.

“Oi, you’re pagan, remember? How come you know that and I don’t?”

Merlin released Gwaine’s wrist so he could grab a couple tea towels so they could both dry off. “I read the box the candles came in. Didn’t you?”

Gwaine’s snort was a clear _no_. “I know the prayers. That’s good enough,” he added, holding his hand up to the light. There was only a faint red spot in the centre of his palm. “Thanks, mate. You do good work.”

Preening inside, Merlin gave a modest shrug and said, “It’s nothing.”

“Right. Cos magic’s ‘nothing.’” Gwaine scoffed. “How about you use that ‘nothing’ and do something about those bloody lights?”

Before Merlin could explain (again) the many reasons he tried to be discreet with his magic, a second sun joined the first, this one glowing from the full-height sliding glass doors that faced the room where he’d been sitting. For a heartbeat, the new flood of light was multi-coloured, like a nuclear-powered rainbow, before the colours blinked over to such powerful white, it could probably be seen from space.

He could just barely make out a tall, angled shape as the source of the light pollution — a Christmas tree, he assumed — before every light began to twinkle and flash. A rousing cheer went up, barely muffled by the intervening walls and open yard, before it gave way to music with window-rattling bass.

“That fucking wanker,” Gwaine repeated, this time in a low growl that meant he’d gone from annoyed to genuinely angry.

Not that Merlin could blame him. Christmas wasn’t for another three-plus weeks, but the decorations, lights, parties, and sales came earlier each year. There was virtually no room for other holidays, especially not Chanukkah. Even the Winter Solstice got more of a mention in the news, though Merlin avoided those reports like the plague, not wanting to die of secondhand embarrassment.

“It _is_ a Saturday night,” he said hesitantly, finally turning his back on the glare before he could get a migraine. In the semi-dark kitchen, with afterimages dancing before his eyes like attacking Sidhe, Gwaine was just a shadowy blur.

A _furious_ shadowy blur. “If this doesn’t stop in two fucking minutes, I’m going over there to kick Leon’s arse,” he threatened.

In the five months since moving in, _Lance_ had never been anything but kind to Merlin. Not that they were friends beyond a hurried “Hello” and “All right, mate?” Merlin wasn’t even entirely certain their neighbour’s name actually _was_ Lance. (Gwaine insisted it was Leon, and after five months, it was too awkward to ask Lance-Leon for direct clarification.)

Normally, the Leon-Lance argument would’ve been a good distraction, but Gwaine was too amped up to fall for a distraction. No, Merlin needed to be solution-oriented.

“Maybe this is a test run,” he guessed, turning back to the window, this time with a hand raised to shield his eyes. The snow clustered on the glass fractured the glow into sparkles that would’ve been beautiful if the light source hadn’t been enough to warn ships away from a rocky shoreline.

Not that their cottage was anywhere near a shoreline, with or without a lighthouse. A lighthouse would’ve added rustic charm along with the four billion lumens currently filling not just the kitchen but the tiny yard separating the cottage from what had been a barn, until it was remodelled into a one-bedroom rental.

And their landlord was an utter _prick_ , which prompted Merlin to say, “Or we could always call the coppers,” despite the twinge of guilt. Whatever Lance-Leon was called, Merlin was positive of one thing: he was a genuinely nice person who would surely rein in the noise and light as soon as he realised it was a nuisance. He didn’t _want_ their neighbour to get an Injunction — or, worse, a Criminal Behaviour Order — but this was excessive for a bloody football stadium, much less the outskirts of a quiet country village.

“I can’t see shit with this fucking glare,” Gwaine said, squinting in the direction of the menorah. He ducked his head so his hair fell down in front of his face as an impromptu glare-shield and fumbled around on the counter. “Help me out here, will you?”

Merlin had healed Gwaine without a thought for secrecy, but that was an emergency. Now he hesitated, glancing at the window — the only one in the house that didn’t have drapes — before deciding no one looking in from outside would see anything but light on wet glass. And helping Gwaine get the menorah lit was a lot more subtle than magically cutting power to Leon-Lance’s ex-barn.

A touch of power levitated the _chamash_ into Gwaine’s hand. When he caught hold of it, Merlin focussed his will on the wick, pulling heat out of the air to coax out a spark that flared like a bonfire in the sudden pitch black darkness that engulfed the kitchen.

“Oh, _nice_ ,” Gwaine approved as the wick caught fire, giving his eyes a golden hue that had nothing to do with the magic that he (thankfully) didn’t have. “It’s like sunglasses for the whole house, yeah?”

Baffled, Merlin let Gwaine take the candle from nerveless fingers. “I... didn’t do that?” he said, blinking at the window just to be certain. His magic had occasionally gone a step further than expected in an effort to be helpful, but not this time. The candlelight sparkled right through the glass, which was still clear, to the fat snowflakes that were barely visible against the absolute darkness outside.

And _inside_ , he realised, turning to look back into the kitchen, where the microwave should have been displaying the current time in bright digital green.

With the dark came silence. No music from across the yard. No buzz from the fridge.

“The power’s gone out,” he said, then felt like a right arse for stating the obvious.

Gwaine barked out a delighted laugh. “Serves them right, the tossers,” he said smugly. With his free hand, he checked the other candle already set in the menorah. As he began the prayer again, Merlin self-consciously turned to leave. This was the first time Gwaine had done anything distinctly Jewish while Merlin was home, and Merlin had no idea if it required privacy or not.

Naturally, Merlin didn’t make it two steps before his bare foot slammed right into the doorjamb. His _“Fuck!”_ momentarily drowned out Gwaine’s Hebrew before he snapped his mouth shut. Bracing a shoulder against the wall, he grabbed at his foot and gingerly prodded, hoping like hell the bone wasn’t broken — an injury that would require a train ride back home for his mum or Uncle Gaius to repair.

“ _... l’hadlik ner shel Chanukkah._ All right there, mate?” Gwaine asked.

Merlin looked back to see not one but two candles, flames dancing against the dark night like tiny beacons. “Kicked the wall.”

Gwaine snorted, holding back a laugh.

“It’s dark!” Merlin complained.

The laugh escaped as Gwaine said, “Make a light, you berk. Or did you forget how?”

Huffing, Merlin summoned a glowing blue sphere, instinctively conjuring it down at knee-level to hide it from anyone looking in the window. “I didn’t want to — you know,” he said, waving a hand at the menorah. “It’s _your_ Festival of Lights.”

“Pretty sure God doesn’t want either of us stumbling around in the dark. And do you have any idea where the torches are?”

“Do we even _have_ torches?”

Gwaine shrugged. “Fuck if I know,” he said before starting in on another prayer.

Sighing, Merlin waved a hand, summoning a second light that he hooked to Gwaine’s aura so it would follow him around until the lights came back on. No sense in both of them having stubbed toes.

~~~

“Well. You really do know how to throw a going-away bash,” Morgana drawled from somewhere off to Arthur’s left. A few people laughed, followed by thuds and swearing as they moved around in the absolute dark.

“Stop moving before —” Arthur shouted, cutting off when something glass shattered.

“Sorry, sorry. That was me,” Leon said. “Stay away from the kitchen doorway.”

“Someone call Health and Safety.” That was Elyan, who sounded like he hadn’t moved from the couch.

A little light came to life, barely enough to illuminate Lance rising from his armchair. Leave it to him to have a miniature torch on his keyring. “Do you know where the fuse box is?” he asked, sweeping the light around until he found Arthur.

Before Arthur could do more than shrug, Gwen said, “I don’t think that’ll help.” Lance turned the torchlight in her direction, over by the window, which looked out onto a night sky that was suspiciously dark, except for a flicker coming from the cottage across the yard. “The power’s gone out everywhere.”

“Bloody hell,” Arthur muttered, glad he couldn’t see the expression on Morgana’s face. She insisted he was shit at hosting parties, though there was no possible way she could blame a neighbourhood power outage on him. Right?

The sound of the fridge opening prompted shouts of “Leave it closed!” and “The cheesecake’s in there!” in voices he couldn’t immediately recognise. Morgana’s friends, all of them content to raid his pantry and drink his beer, made up the bulk of the party; Arthur had carefully restricted his own invites to his closest mates, most of whom at least knew Morgana.

After all, as she’d pointed out more than once, this was _her_ party.

Light flashed down by Arthur’s shoes as Lance made his way over, torch carefully pointed down. “Do you have more torches? Maybe lanterns for camping?” Lance asked hopefully.

“The only ‘camping’ we’ve ever done involved a caravan with a full kitchen, memory foam mattresses, and a hot tub right outside.”

“Could your childhood have been more surreal?”

Arthur snorted. “Our father had the caravan transported wherever we were going for the season’s hunt. We followed along later, after the electric and water were all hooked up.”

Other lights were joining Lance’s little keyring torch as people got out their mobiles. Arthur nearly did the same, but his battery was at half-charge, and he had no idea how long power outages lasted here. They were in the arse end of nowhere, and he knew full well how terrible the local infrastructure was. God knew he’d listened to his father yell at contractors enough during the property renovation.

Raising his voice to cut through the chatter, he warned, “Save your batteries! The power might be out for a while.”

The groans and curses were just as expected as Morgana’s answer: “Well, that’s the party ended, I suppose.”

_No._ There had to be a way to salvage this. There was no crisis so great it couldn’t be solved by a sharp mind, determination, and (perhaps most importantly) a substantial bank account.

But for the first time in his life, he came up blank. He had no torches or candles, there was nowhere local to buy a generator, and the remodelled barn didn’t even have a fireplace like the original cottage did.

All he could do was watch as Morgana’s going-away party crumbled into ruins, with a flurry of people bumping into furniture on their way to bid her farewell before fetching their jackets and umbrellas. Worse, he couldn’t blame them. Even if he’d been prepared with torches or lanterns, what were they supposed to do? Sit around and tell ghost stories?

Instead of joining the rush for the door, Lance remained at Arthur’s side. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?” Arthur asked more sharply than Lance deserved.

“Blaming yourself.”

“I’m not —”

“Arthur,” Lance interrupted gently, killing the denial on Arthur’s lips.

Frustrated, he conceded, “I thought I’d accounted for every contingency. Group hotel rates, designated drivers, food allergies, Morgana’s favourite cheesecake — which cost me a hundred pounds for the recipe, by the way, because her mother’s a bloody mercenary.”

Lance’s chuckle was warm, sending a little shiver down Arthur’s spine. “And I’m certain Morgana appreciates the effort. That’s what counts, you know.”

“Optimist,” Arthur muttered, half-envious, half-accusatory, with another shiver... one that had nothing to do with Lance’s proximity. No, this was actual cool air seeping through the glass, even though the old window had been replaced just a few months ago. Dual-pane glass could only do so much when the sash was reclaimed from the original wood rather than something modern and properly insulating.

Every time one of the guests opened the door, a fresh gust of cold air blew in. Ignoring whatever Lance said, Arthur went to check the wall-mounted heater, not that he knew how the bloody thing worked. He’d lived with central heat his whole life. And after moving up here in the summer, he’d looked at the heater’s operation manual precisely once, to make sure he wasn’t about to set his favourite armchair on fire when arranging his furniture.

The heater was hot but the fans were off, and all the status indicator lights had gone dark. Naturally there was no battery backup; his father had intended to rent the barn to random strangers, not his son. Arthur was _supposed_ to be in London, working at his father’s development firm, not taking advantage of the peace and quiet to put his Creative Writing MFA to good use. Hell, he’d even rented the barn through an agent to make sure the paperwork never crossed his father’s desk.

“Don’t tell me,” Lance said, shining his torch at the dead heater. “It’s electric, not gas?”

Arthur sighed, crossing his arms to hide another shudder. “This is a listed property. Refitting it for gas would’ve cost a fortune.”

Lance put a comforting hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “Come to the hotel with us. There’s only one bed, but I’m sure Morgana won’t mind if Gwen stays with her.”

“Wait — one bed?” Arthur asked, forgetting all about his failed party.

Even in the near-complete darkness, Arthur could see Lance’s sly smile. “It was Gwen’s idea. She, uh...” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Don’t say anything, but she asked me to marry her.”

_“What?”_

“Shh!” Lance hissed, looking over his shoulder at the near-empty room. “We didn’t want to say anything until after the party.”

“What?” Arthur repeated. “Why? We could’ve celebrated —”

“This is Morgana’s party,” Lance interrupted. “Besides, we wanted to tell our families first.”

Grinning, Arthur said, “ _We’re_ family, you wanker. Gwen’s been Morgana’s closest friend since they were in nappies.”

“Which is why we didn’t want to steal the spotlight,” Lance insisted, also grinning. “And it won’t _actually_ happen until next year at the earliest, so there’s plenty of time.”

“Time for what?” Leon asked, emerging from the darkness like a ginger spectre.

“Nothing,” Lance said, shooting Arthur a warning look.

“Uh huh.” Leon leaned in close, bumping his shoulder into Arthur’s. “You finally talk them into a threesome?”

_I wish,_ Arthur thought, indulging in the fantasy for a single heartbeat before he shoved it back down into the depths of his subconscious where it belonged. Instead he scoffed and gave Leon a shove, saying, “You’re just jealous. You picked the wrong Pendragon and now you’re trapped.”

Leon winced, visibly bracing himself as Morgana spoke up from right behind him: “Trapped, brother?”

Oops. Arthur shrugged, striving for casual, and asked, “Are you leaving him with me while you run off on your world tour?”

“I’m going to warm up the car,” Leon said before Morgana could answer. “Arthur, thanks for the party. See you soon, Lance.”

The handshakes and goodbyes gave Lance an excuse to slip away, leaving Arthur to face his sister alone. The light from her mobile gave her winter-pale skin an ethereal glow, turning her blue eyes into chips of ice. But instead of slicing him open with her words, she said, “It’s not your fault. Thank you for trying.”

Disarmed by the unexpected sincerity, Arthur said, “We should have just rented a venue. The hotel —”

“The hotel is exquisite, expensive, and impersonal.” She put her hand on his arm. “This all took planning.”

He heard the unspoken message loud and clear: Arthur had put _effort_ into hosting the party, as opposed to just throwing money at someone else and expecting them to handle everything.

Which was exactly what their father normally would have done, if he hadn’t been so caught up in blatantly expressing his displeasure at Morgana’s decision to travel the world rather than settling down with a husband of appropriate status.

This was probably Arthur’s cue to give her a hug or say something warmly encouraging, but that wasn’t the way their relationship worked. Instead, before the moment could stretch too long, he said, “Don’t forget the cheesecake.”

She smirked, light flashing as she led him away from the cold heater, only to stop in the kitchen doorway, where someone had made only a cursory effort to clean up a broken glass. Slowly, she tilted her mobile, illuminating the countertops littered with half-finished drinks, abandoned plates, and trays of food still covered with foil or clingfilm.

“I’ll stay to help you tidy up,” she said, though Arthur could practically hear her skin crawling at the thought. She’d sooner run the London Marathon naked than touch dirty dishes with her bare hands.

“The boiler’s electric. There’s no point in even starting until the electricity is back on.”

“Then come to the hotel,” Morgana said quickly, as if to keep Arthur from changing his mind. “The hotel’s got to have another suite open, and Dad gave me a corporate card for emergencies.”

Arthur laughed, tempted to accept if only because she loved to seize any chance to stick it to their father. But then he shook his head, saying, “No, I need to be here for when the power comes back.”

She arched a brow. “And if it doesn’t?”

“Then I need to call Pendragon Properties, Incorporated, and demand they provide a generator.”

Her laugh was bright enough to light up the kitchen. “I’m tempted to stay just to hear that, but you and I both know he won’t be in the office until Monday.”

“I’ll be fine,” Arthur insisted with more confidence than he felt. He crossed to the fridge and opened it, wryly thinking that pretty soon the barn would be colder than the insulated fridge so at least none of his food would go bad. Morgana’s cheesecake had pride of place on its own shelf, complete with a brand new serving plate. “We’ll just wrap it. Can you get the foil out of that drawer?” There was no clear counter space, so he resorted to putting the cheesecake on the cold hob.

Over the crinkle of foil, Morgana said, “I feel like I’m abandoning a puppy, leaving you here.”

“Oh, thanks _so much_.”

Morgana put down her mobile with the light shining up, casting eerie shadows across her face. “Well, what are you going to do? Other than freeze to death?”

Arthur turned away with a shrug, and the glint of light caught his eye, flickering warmly through the blizzard. Being a full-time writer meant he kept odd hours, so he’d never actually met whoever lived in the cottage across the yard. Truth be told, he’d never even tried.

But they had candles — and while their cottage was smaller, it still had its original fireplace. With any luck, they’d laid in a store of firewood. Surely they wouldn’t begrudge their neighbour a bit of warmth on a night like this?

“I have no plans to freeze to death,” Arthur said, turning back as Morgana lifted the cheesecake, now wrapped. “Text me to let me know you made it safely to the hotel?”

“Please, Leon’s a better driver than you’ll ever be.” She shifted her grip on the cheesecake so she could pick up her mobile, then kissed Arthur’s cheek. “You’re sure you’ll be all right alone?”

“I won’t be alone,” he said, following her out into the hallway. Theirs were the last of the coats on the rack. He took the cheesecake so she could put hers on, then shrugged into his parka. The scarf felt like overkill — he was going next door, not to the next town over — but his neighbour might be slow to answer the door. There was no sense freezing on the threshold of potential warmth. “I’m going to visit my neighbour.”


	2. Chapter 2

Years of living on pot noodles and leftovers meant Merlin didn’t consider himself a foodie, and he’d never turned his nose up at chocolate before, but he could barely manage to nibble the edge of the suspiciously dull “chocolate” coin without hacking it up like a cat with a hairball. Gwaine stared at him with huge puppy dog eyes, soft despite the actinic blue-white gleam of Merlin’s magical light, full of hope and fear and a desperate need to connect over a heap of vile, foil-wrapped, chocolate-adjacent chemical disks.

“D’you like it?” Gwaine asked pleadingly. “They’re authentic Chanukkah _gelt_. Aunt Mitzi sent them all the way from Brooklyn.”

“It’s” — Merlin discarded about a hundred adjectives in English, Welsh, Old English, Brittonic, Latin, and Ancient Greek — “interesting.”

Gwaine’s shoulders slumped, and he looked down at the fake gold coins remaining in the net sack he’d torn open so eagerly. The rest of his aunt’s care-package was off to one side, contents ominously hidden by cheerful blue packing paper.

Guilt drove Merlin to take a bigger bite. He made himself swallow, then bared his teeth in a sort of a grin, saying, “No, really. It’s... _You wanker!_ ” As Gwaine burst into laughter, Merlin threw the half-eaten coin at him, then gulped down the rest of his lukewarm tea to wash the too-sweet film off his tongue. “Gods, that’s rank!”

“Right of passage, mate,” Gwaine gasped out, pulling one of the smaller coins out of the bag to chuck at Merlin, who slingshotted it back with an energy-absorbing shield that reversed the coin’s trajectory with a complex bit of magic his uncle and mam had yet to recreate.

“If you grew up eating _that_ rubbish, that would explain so much.”

Gwaine tossed the coins onto the coffee table with a snort, then turned to rifle through the rest of the contents. “No one _actually_ eats them. Well, not unless you’re desperate or drunk.”

“Aren’t they meant for kids? Which explains a hell of a lot about you,” Merlin added, looking mournfully into his empty tea mug. Usually caffeine would offset the dizziness that would come from magically boiling a cup of water for tea, but he had no idea how long the power outage would last. Best to conserve his energy — and avoid Gwaine’s fake chocolate.

With a victorious “Aha!” Gwaine produced something that looked like a fishing bobber until Merlin spotted the Hebrew letters painted on each of the four sides. “I swear, she thinks I’m still eight years old.”

“Are we playing” — Merlin dredged through his sketchy memories and linguistics training — “dreidel? That’s what that is, yeah?”

Gwaine put the dreidel point-down on the coffee table and gave it a vigorous spin. “Got anything better to do?”

Warily, Merlin eyed the pieces of chocolate _gelt_. The foil wrappers weren’t stamped with any recognisable denominations, but there were two distinct coin sizes. As the dreidel spun down to land with the blue-painted letter facing up, he asked, “It’s a gambling game, isn’t it?”

“That’s the kid version. The adult one’s a drinking game.”

“Oh, no. Sit your arse back down,” Merlin ordered as Gwaine got to his feet. This time, the puppy dog eyes didn’t work. “We do _not_ mix alcohol and magic.”

With a theatrical gasp, Gwaine clutched his chest and dropped back onto the couch. “You would _cheat_ at playing dreidel?”

“No, I’d _cheat_ at giving us light and enough warmth to not freeze to death tonight.” Determined to divert Gwaine from anything involving alcohol or horrific chocolate, Merlin asked, “What else did she send? Something _not_ foil-wrapped?”

“Oi, be glad it’s not Passover. You haven’t lived until you’ve cracked open the third bottle of Manischewitz in sheer desperation because the kids decided only four questions aren’t nearly enough,” Gwaine said over the rustle of packing paper.

“You do remember I’m pagan, yeah? I understood maybe ten per cent — Hey!” Merlin didn’t get a shield up soon enough to block the plastic-wrapped missile Gwaine lobbed his way. Thankfully it proved to be a sleeve of iced biscuits rather than anything noticeably hazardous, though he was naturally wary of how they’d taste. The icing was half white, half black — true black, not just dark chocolate, which wasn’t exactly encouraging.

“Those are good. Sort of like New York shortbread,” Gwaine said, excavating a stack of Polaroid photos — actual Polaroids — from the bottom of the box.

Merlin forgot about the cookies. “Is your aunt a hipster?”

Gwaine shrugged. “Is there an age limit?”

A knock at the front door saved Merlin from answering. Instinctively, he banished the sphere of light, plunging the room into absolute darkness that left him fumbling for the mobile he’d dropped on the coffee table. “One second!” he yelled.

“Someone from electric, you think?” Gwaine asked, too lazy to get off his arse and answer the door himself.

“Not this fast. It’s only been... what? Fifteen, twenty minutes?” Merlin finally found his mobile and turned on the light so he could safely navigate the cramped living room and make it to the door.

He checked the door viewer out of habit but couldn’t see a damned thing. He gathered his power into a shield (he’d seen one too many horror movies to trust any unexpected visitor during a power outage) before unlocking the door. When he cracked it open, icy air rushed in, sweeping below the edge of his shield to freeze his bare toes.

“Hey —” The bloke outside flinched, throwing up a hand to shield his eyes from the light of Merlin’s mobile. “Oi! Watch it!”

Snow-dusted black parka, no gloves over his cold-reddened white hands, no badge or reflective safety vest to suggest he was a utility worker. Instead of a torch, he carried a lit-up mobile, just like Merlin. Stranded motorist, perhaps?

 _Or a serial killer,_ Merlin’s movie-trained brain whispered a bit gleefully. Serial killer versus mage? Bring it on.

“Sorry. You are...?” he prompted, tipping the mobile down just a bit. The parka was too bulky for him to hazard a guess as to the body underneath it, though the bloke’s face...

Well. Other than the cold-induced red blotches, he was _very_ nice to look at, with cool blue eyes, rakish blond scruff over a strong jaw, and wind-dry lips just begging to be nipped.

“I’m your neighbour, Arthur,” the bloke lied, because this _definitely_ wasn’t Lance-Leon (who was admittedly gorgeous in his own right).

“Really,” Merlin said flatly over Gwaine’s shouted, “Oi! You’re letting in all the cold!”

“Really,” not-Leon-Lance agreed with what probably would’ve been a winning smile if not for the way he sniffled, hard and loud, like a dragon with allergies. “Can I come in? The snow’s not letting up.”

Merlin stepped back for three reasons. First, his mam would kill him if he let _anyone_ freeze to death on his doorstep, up to and including a serial killer. Second, Gwaine had a collection of knives that would put any serial killer to shame. And third, after Merlin had come up with a transfiguration spell that would theoretically work on a living creature, Uncle Gaius had made Merlin swear to never actually _cast_ the spell unless it was a matter of life-or-death. Surely turning a serial killer into a still-living sheep was better than invoking far simpler magic to stop the bloke’s heart, right?

The snowy potential serial killer stepped in, thumping his shoes — his _dress shoes?_ — on the welcome mat to knock off the snow. He looked to the right, frowning in confusion when he spotted the bright purple mezuzah screwed to the doorframe. Then he looked left as he swept off his hood, and his disarrayed golden-blond hair nearly distracted Merlin from the swift array of expressions that crossed his face, from surprise to confusion to a determined “I’m ignoring anything I can’t immediately explain,” all because of the unglazed ceramic pentacle hanging opposite the mezuzah.

Then again, would the PSK (“Arthur” had to be a fake name) even recognize the Hebrew letter on Princess Twilight Sparkle’s rump, indicative of the mezuzah scroll inside the plastic case, or would he assume Merlin and Gwaine were Satanic Bronies?

“You’re not Leon,” Gwaine accused, coming up behind Merlin. He didn’t have his mobile out, keeping his hands free.

“You know Leon?” PSK asked, surprised, his expression seemingly open and honest, though Merlin was better at reading ancient languages than faces or body language.

“You mean Lance,” Merlin put in, and PSK’s face went back to baffled.

Gwaine darted a quick look Merlin’s way, as if he wanted to start shit over the names but didn’t want to let down his guard. “Yeah, well, it’s not _Arthur_.”

“You don’t —” PSK shook his head and asked, “How do you know Lance and Leon?”

 _“And?”_ slipped out before Merlin could stop himself. In hindsight, it was bloody obvious, but he’d let himself get caught up in Gwaine’s insistence that the neighbour — singular — was named Leon, with no allowance for even one roommate, much less two.

Still wearing a frown that Merlin refused to acknowledge was adorable, PSK nodded, fumbling to pull down the zip of his parka. His cheeks were still flushed, and it took Merlin a moment to realise the cottage was far warmer than it should have been, given the blizzard raging outside.

Oops.

Merlin tamped down the magic dancing in the air, then winced when his feet, already chilled from when he’d opened the door, turned to blocks of ice. He backed up until he reached the throw rug, which was marginally less cold than the foyer’s original-to-the-house stone floor.

PSK-or-Arthur, assuming he was the third roommate living across the yard (with all three of them in one bedroom?), got the parka fully open, revealing a light blue button-up that was fighting a losing battle against too-broad shoulders. A corner of Merlin’s mind pointed out the lack of layers were one more tick mark on the list of “reasons to believe Arthur lived somewhere nearby, possibly across the courtyard.” The rest of his brain was occupied with calculating just how long it had been since he’d got anywhere near shoulders half so nice, and Gwaine walking in on him in the shower didn’t count.

“Right. Let’s start over, yeah? I’m Arthur, and I live in the other house, _alone_. Leon and Lance are friends. And you two are...?”

Merlin was still caught up in reining in both his magic and his imagination. Gwaine took it upon himself to answer, “Gwaine, Merlin,” indicating them each in turn.

Arthur (probably not a serial killer) nodded, ruffling his hair with his free hand. “So, ah, I saw the candles in your window.”

“The menorah,” Gwaine said, his voice surprisingly sharp.

“The — yeah.” Arthur’s adorable frown made its reappearance, tempting Merlin to tip his mobile just a bit in hopes of better lighting. Then, as if the frown weren’t enough, Arthur added a shrug and a lopsided smile that completely scrambled Merlin’s remaining wits. “I don’t have any candles. And, ah, no torch either.”

“Huh.” Gwaine’s snort was less like a laugh, more like a smug draconic huff, all part of stoking the fires before letting loose a knight-melting blast. “Night like tonight, sucks to be you, caught with your pants down.”

 _What?_ Merlin thought, or maybe said aloud, because all eyes snapped to him, along with the lights from two mobiles that wrecked what little night-vision he’d developed since dispelling his magical illumination.

“But...” Arthur turned his definitely-too-adorable frown on Gwaine, then back to Merlin, as if hoping he’d be more reasonable. “You’ve got _two_ candles in the kitchen... though none in here?” he said, craning his neck to look past Gwaine in the direction of the inky dark living room, drapes closed tightly. Thankfully the non-open-plan layout of the cottage meant no light bled in from the kitchen, meaning Arthur couldn’t see the detritus of Gwaine’s questionable Chanukkah spoils and wonder if they’d been wasting their mobile batteries.

Which they were. Merlin thumbed his off one-handed, because he was still holding the sleeve of black-and-white iced biscuits, and shot Gwaine a glare. “I’m sure we have a couple extra —”

“Nope,” Gwaine interrupted with sharp, vicious cheer. “Forty-four per box, and that’s exactly the number I need.”

This time, the _“What?”_ came from both Merlin and Arthur. Aloud.

“They’re _Chanukkah_ candles. Eight nights’ worth. One box per holiday.”

Merlin stared at his half-visible roommate, momentarily too stunned to even _think_. From day one, Gwaine had done more than his share, from playing chauffeur for a week and a half while Merlin’s car was in the shop to cooking homemade garlic-laden chicken soup when Merlin’s sniffles threatened to turn into all-out flu.

“I... might have some candles,” Merlin lied; he’d burned his last beeswax candle on Samhain and kept forgetting to text his mam to send him some more. Flashing a quick, reassuring smile at Arthur, he grabbed Gwaine’s arm and said, “Help me look,” before dragging Gwaine to the hallway and up the steep, narrow staircase.

Once they were in Merlin’s tiny bedroom, Gwaine hissed, “What the fuck?”

“You tell me,” Merlin whispered back, conscious of the absolute silence imposed by the blizzard that filled the night. “We can order six more boxes of candles once our internet’s back up. Isn’t Chanukkah about sharing light in a world full of darkness?”

Instead of relenting, Gwaine crossed his arms, plunging the room into darkness as he tucked his mobile against his chest. “It’s about a band of desperate, outnumbered Jews facing assimilation or genocide at the hands of a tyrannical, totalitarian regime, fighting through impossible odds to reclaim their lands, identity, and religious freedom. It’s not the fucking ‘Jewish version of Christmas,’ all peace and love and goodwill to arseholes who drown out my menorah with more lights than a bloody airport landing strip!”

Wrong-footed, Merlin held up his hands (and the sleeve of cookies that he _still_ hadn’t put down). “I’m — I’m sorry,” he said, scrambling to remember _anything_ he’d ever learned about Chanukkah and coming up with a big giant blank beyond menorahs and dreidels. Even the chocolate gelt experience was new (and not one he’d like to repeat, though he would, if it would ease Gwaine’s temper).

Gwaine inhaled, clearly prepped for round two of his high-volume religious studies lesson, but a loud, “Uh, mates?” floated up the stairs, audible through the gaps in the time-warped wooden door.

“Shit,” Merlin muttered, fumbling for his mobile, though Gwaine uncovered his light first, reaching back to crack open the door.

“Sorry!” their neighbour called. “I’d no idea! It’s... fine.”

A quick check showed Gwaine’s frown had melted into a softer, almost puzzled expression. Merlin tipped his head in silent question, but Gwaine just gestured him out to the stairs.

Normally Merlin would’ve taken that as a concession, even tacit permission to help out a neighbour in need, but this went beyond handing over a cup of sugar. (Not that anyone did that sort of things these days, did they?) This was _religion_ , and though Gwaine didn’t light candles every Friday night or attend temple regularly, obviously Chanukkah had a special place in his heart.

Besides, Arthur’s Christmas lights really had been bloody obnoxious.

“Let me handle this, yeah?” Merlin whispered, wondering if he could transmute something around the house into a candle, though nothing came to mind. Ideally the object would be as close as possible to the target in shape, material, and purpose, but his brain stalled on the toys in his bedside table top drawer; he could think of so many better ways to share them with his gorgeous, adorably puzzled neighbour.

Besides, the spell probably wouldn’t work as intended. Silicone wasn’t meant to be flammable.

~~~

_Way to cock up a first meeting,_ Arthur thought, mentally kicking himself the instant he wound down his babbling apology.

He should’ve realised the candles in the kitchen were for Chanukkah, which also probably explained why there weren’t more of them lit around the house. Maybe. Could you move a menorah after it was lit? Probably not. Otherwise they would’ve brought it into the living room. Then again, the living room had a throw rug, so maybe they were just wary of fire.

 _Or you’re being an arse, psychoanalysing a religion you know nothing about,_ he scolded himself, though this time the imagined words came in his sister’s voice that went silent only at the thunder of someone rushing down the stairs.

It was the oddly-named Merlin, running about with his bare feet and indecently tight red jumper over equally indecent jeans. His hair was a wild tangle visible only where the strands gleamed in the dim light, putting Arthur in mind of his favourite horse, Hengroen, right after he’d been bathed and brushed to a deep glowing brown.

“Sorry. I thought, candles upstairs, but no, couldn’t find them,” Merlin said in a breathless rush, flailing a hand in the direction of the staircase where Gwaine (his roommate? _boyfriend?_ ) was descending more sedately.

“Oh. Well,” Arthur said inanely, barely darting a glance at Gwaine to instead focus on Merlin. He was still holding a plastic sleeve of what looked like iced biscuits, unopened. _Very_ odd. Maybe Arthur had interrupted a makeshift supper. The thought made his own stomach growl, reminding him he’d spent all day decorating for Morgana’s party. “I’ll just —”

“No!” Merlin cut in, his voice sharp with command. Then he laughed, lightly adding, “I mean, you’ll freeze to death before you’re halfway across the yard. And we have a fireplace, but you don’t.”

“What?” Arthur asked blankly.

“Yeah, ‘what?’” Gwaine repeated, side-eyeing Merlin. “It doesn’t even work.”

“Of course it does,” Merlin said, his voice just a bit manic.

“I don’t want —” Arthur cut off _again_ , this time because Merlin stabbed him in the gut with the sleeve of biscuits. He took it instinctively, protecting himself from further dessert-assault, and asked, “Huh?”

 _Brilliant wit there, Pendragon,_ his inner Morgana drawled. _Aren’t writers supposed to have a way with words?_

Merlin didn’t bother answering, occupied with drawing far too much attention to his skin-hugging jeans by excavating a mobile from one pocket. Arthur stared — and kept staring as Merlin unlocked the screen, turned on the light, and turned away. The light bobbed and his hips swayed in silhouette, leaving Arthur’s writer-brain to come up with lots of words, all of them inappropriate.

“Merlin?” Gwaine asked warily, apparently immune to the sight. Was he jaded or just straight? The house did have two bedrooms, after all, so maybe...

Merlin gave a little laugh, bright and sly, pulling Arthur a step farther into the little cottage. “What? Did you think the basket of firewood was decorative?”

Gwaine stood his ground in the foyer. “Yeah,” he said flatly.

A little prickle of alarm crawled down Arthur’s spine. His name wasn’t on the lease for the cottage, but that wouldn’t stop his father from killing him for allowing any Pendragon investment property to burn down. “Why weren’t you using it before?”

“Oh, it was — it was warm enough,” Merlin said, dropping his mobile on the mantel, light pointing up. The reflected light was just enough for Arthur to see the flash of his smile before he turned his back again. “You know, before we opened the door to rescue you.”

 _“Rescue?”_ Arthur asked, bristling at Gwaine’s amused snort.

“Like a kitten, showing up — on the — doorstep,” Merlin said, seeming to struggle with something. The damper lever, perhaps?

“A _kitten?_ ” Arthur demanded, torn between storming out and offering his help.

Snorts turning to outright laughter, Gwaine drawled, “If the fur fits...”

The lever gave way with a loud _clunk_ as Merlin scolded, “Gwaine.” He looked back, gaze barely skimming Gwaine before his eyes met Arthur’s, impossibly bright blue in the indirect lighting. “The lighter’s still in the kitchen?”

Absurdly, Arthur felt like Merlin was talking to _him_. Once again, his talent as a writer failed him, this time for the best. Gwaine broke the silence, saying, “Yeah, all right,” as he went for a narrow hallway, taking one-third of the ambient light with him.

Leaving Arthur and Merlin alone.

“You really don’t have to do this on my account,” Arthur said over the soft rustle of detritus on the coffee table as Merlin sorted through what looked like tissue paper, gold foil, Polaroid photos, and stacks of paper.

Merlin lifted his head just enough for Arthur to catch a blue gleam beneath his fringe. The cold air crackled between them as Merlin slyly said, “It _is_ your fault we opened the door.”

“All I did was knock. It wasn’t a home invasion.” Arthur went to cross his arms again, only to realise he was still holding the biscuits along with his mobile. He stared down at them, tipping the mobile to better see the decoration: a white half moon on a black background? What did _that_ have to do with Chanukkah?

“Aha. Don’t need this one,” Merlin said, extracting a glossy-paged catalogue from the chaos as Gwaine came back into the room, dazzling Arthur with a carelessly (or carefully) directed flash of his mobile on the way to the fireplace. “Ta,” Merlin said, plucking a lighter from Gwaine’s hand.

“You’re _absolutely positive_ the chimney’s clear?” Gwaine asked with odd emphasis, as if he were conveying some hidden message in code.

Arthur’s writer-brain seized the idle thought and ran with it, constructing the flimsy framework of a plot involving two spies infiltrating a village, a stash of stolen secret documents in a fireplace, and the nerve-tingling potential of accidental discovery by a neighbour seeking warmth in a blizzard. Naturally there’d be a romance subplot — not because “it’s the only way to get women to read your work,” as too many of his MFA instructors had claimed, but because it would let him weave in emotional stakes and character development.

The spies would be posing as a couple, naturally, perhaps even going so far as to share a bed and convert the second bedroom into a home office. But that was the easy way out, and Arthur wasn’t about to spend the rest of his life with training wheels on his keyboard, to destroy the metaphor. No, the romance would come between the innocent neighbour and one of the spies, forged in the tense, heady, intimate atmosphere as they huddled close to the fire for warmth while Spy Number Two slipped out into the blizzard to hide the stolen intel in an icy tree stump far from where Spy Number One and Innocent Neighbour —

“There! That’ll do.”

The pleased declaration wrenched Arthur’s blizzard-addled mind back to reality, where his nose and ears were uncomfortably chilled while a trickle of sweat slithered down his spine because he was wearing his parka and his icy fingers were _still_ clutching a bloody sleeve of iced biscuits.

Gwaine stepped out of the way, revealing Merlin ducking out of the fireplace. Embers rained down in a flash of gold as the half-burned magazine fell to the wrought iron log grate below.

“That’s not nearly enough to warm the flue,” Arthur protested, finally dropping the damn biscuits onto the coffee table. He took brief note of fake gold coins, blue tissue paper, and a scattering of Polaroid photos, of all things, none of which were more important than preventing his neighbours from burning down the cottage.

“It’s warm enough,” Merlin declared confidently, dropping to a crouch that made his already-tight jeans positively obscene. No force on Earth could have stopped Arthur from angling his mobile just so, sweeping light across Merlin’s arse in the guise of helpfully illuminating the decorative rack of seasoned split logs.

Despite the view, Arthur persisted, “There’s a damn blizzard outside. All that cold air sinking —”

Merlin turned to look over his shoulder, a half feral creature crouched in shadow, only his pale skin and blazing eyes truly visible. “Do you smell any smoke in here?”

Stubbornly, Arthur made a show of inhaling, and it had nothing to do at all with catching his breath. Even Gwaine gave a tentative little sniff, though he followed up with a smirk and kept his mouth shut.

“No,” Arthur finally conceded. Maybe the remodelling crew had added some extra insulation to make the chimney safer for renters who might not know how to use a basic fireplace. And apparently Merlin _did_ know what he was doing, so Arthur felt compelled to add, “Sorry.”

Merlin stared at him for what felt like an age but couldn’t have been more than a second. Then, with a quick smirk and a nod, he went back to moving logs onto the fireplace grate, and Arthur let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He suspected he’d just been tested — and that he’d passed.


End file.
